


Lost and Found

by Fridurmus



Series: Alpha-5425 Stuff [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Barely-formatted Discord RP, Other, Post-Pacifist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 11:24:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15929450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fridurmus/pseuds/Fridurmus
Summary: Eight years after freeing the Monsters, Frisk still has a few people left to save. (Part of a Discord/Tumblr RP-group AU)





	1. Chapter 1

Three years ago, after months of restless sleep, Frisk got on an airplane and flew away from Ebott. He flew away on Toriel's dime, arriving in Geneva and immediately being ushered aboard a private helicopter. This took him far into the Alps, where human scientists had discovered something entirely unexpected: a new Underground. A second mountain, sharing the unique magical properties of Ebott, but completely unpopulated. The discovery had been kept secret as a research facility was built, and eventually Toriel was brought in for funding.

After speaking to Frisk in private, she decided to bring him out as well. 

Frisk spent the trip reading. In the numerous resets leading to the Barrier breaking, he'd learned to read scientific notes quickly thanks to time spent in Carmen's room and the True Lab. One of the few perks of having been possessed, he supposed. The mountain was smaller than Ebott, but gave off similar amounts of magical power from its center. Just like the Core chamber, this smaller mountain had a weakened edge between the timeline itself and the attached voidspace. 

This was the main point of research. The facility was built on the mountainside, burrowing down toward the magic swirling at its heart. High-energy spectrometers and sensors burrowed through the rock, reading in everything the proto-Core did. What they found was fascinating. What they didn't find was more so.

The helicopter landed, and Frisk sighed. Time to make some new friends.

The elevator ride into the complex was long, and Frisk's ears popped. He held the amulet tightly- it was, of course, a fake by now. He'd returned Chara's to Toriel ages ago. This one, instead of a picture of Asriel and the Dreemurrs, held within a picture of Carmen, Captain, and Sentiment, taken in secret during one of the rare moments the three were all together. The other side opened as well, revealing Toriel, Asgore, and Frisk standing atop the mountain and looking at the stars.

Just like the locket that he'd used before, this one kept him human for all intents and purposes. While he was absolutely certain that Toriel would've warned the researchers- not all of whom, he noticed on his way in with a twinge of pride, were humans- he didn't want to cause any more confusion than necessary by showing up furry. As soon as the doors slid open, he was face to face with a large tortoise-monster holding some kind of modern rifle.

"Frisk Dreemurr-Serif?" The monster asked, gruffly.

"That's me." Frisk replied, eying the Rifle as though it might grow fangs and bite him.

"This way." The monster said, and started off down the hallway. 

As Frisk walked, he observed the smooth metal plating of the walls, the even and calming lighting almost like sunlight, the clean tiles of the floor. This, he thought, must've been what the True Lab was like when it was new- a state of the art facility, dedicated to the study of all things magical and otherwise. He couldn't wait to get his hands on the equipment here. He was already daydreaming about what the nearly bottomless pockets of the Royals could buy for a place like this when he ran smack into the shell of the tortoise monster with an undignified grunt.

"Er." Frisk said, as the monster turned to look at him. "Sorry. Lost in my head, heh."

The monster shrugged, gesturing to the door beside them. "Head in. Doc Landis will be up shortly for you."

"Right." Frisk said, stepping through into a room with two comfortable-looking office chairs and a wooden desk. He sat down, smoothed out his shirt, and leaned back to wait.

Frisk had been waiting for about five minutes. It was enough time for the teenager to start pushing the other chair back and forth with his considerable magic, the one thing he'd focused on more than researching the Void and its less visible properties. 

He had it upside down and spinning on one of its corners when the door opened, and he jumped, the chair maintaining its spin quite neatly. 

The redheaded man who walked through the door was pale and stocky, wearing a white lab coat with the royal insignia on its breast pocket and jeans. He adjusted his thin-rimmed glasses as Frisk spun the chair back into place, clearing his throat and scratching at his well-trimmed beard.

"Frisk?" He asked, glancing at the paperwork in his hands. He had a light accent, British, Frisk thought. "You must be."

"Something wrong?" Frisk asked, as Landis stepped in and took his seat. Acting casual was a fine art that Frisk had practiced endlessly when someone would walk in on his magic practice. 

"Her Highness told us to expect a boss monster." Landis said, setting the paperwork down. There was his badge, Frisk noted, previously hidden against his chest by the papers- Benjamin Landis, PhD, Royal Scientist. When did Toriel hire a new Royal Scientist...?

"It's a long story." Frisk said, self-consciously reaching up to touch the locket. "I could match whatever picture you've got, but I'd have to take my shoes off first."

"Honestly, I believe you." Landis said, shaking his head. "If you want to make things easier with whoever else you intend on meeting, that's up to you."

Frisk made a noncommittal noise, and left the necklace on.

"It's good to meet you." Landis continued. "Her Highness spoke very highly of you, and of course, you're something of a heroic figure to most monsters. Getting to finally sit down with you means I can put a face to the person who broke the barrier."

Frisk sighed. "It's. You know. It's more complicated than that."

"I know. But whatever you think of yourself, underneath all of that, you've got a reputation." Landis smiled. "To say nothing of what I've heard of your understanding of the Void."

That got Frisk to sit up a bit more. "It's not like I'm some genius. I just had... a lot of time to study."

"And hands-on experience." Landis observed, which Frisk nodded at. "All of which is very important."

The two talked for hours. Landis and his team had been performing experiments for a year already, and had developed an impressive 3D map of the border between the Void and the Timeline. Landis described it as the edge of the universe, and Frisk observed that it was more like poking a hole in the wall of a house to see what was outside. 

Landis paused, hand on the final few sheets of paper. The last one they'd been reviewing- frequency observations for external forces acting on the Timeline's edge- still blocked Frisk's view of them. The scientist cleared his throat.

"Before we go on," He said, "I have to know. What is it, exactly, that you and Toriel have planned? She took an extreme interest in our work, and I'm aware that she was in touch with you frequently enough that you must have a similar interest. What is it, exactly, that got you to fly all the way out here? What are you two after?"

Frisk frowned. His fingers went back to the locket, and he started to fidget more quickly, eyes avoiding Landis'. Toriel hadn't told the Royal Scientist yet? His stomach twisted. How was he supposed to explain this?

His racing mind was jolted back to the moment by a powerful knock at the door. In walked Toriel, wearing her traditional robes, and he let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"Ah, Landis. I'm glad you and Frisk had the chance to talk before I arrived." She said, beaming. "I do hope I'm not interrupting anything vital."

"No, of course not, your Highness." Landis said. "I'm glad you're here, actually. I'm hesitant, ma'am, to go any further without knowing what our end goal here is."

Frisk gave Toriel a helpless look. "He's great, and I see why you picked him and all, but I dunno how to explain this properly."

Toriel's smile faded, and she sighed, closing the door behind her. "Very well. Take a deep breath, Frisk. It's okay. Landis, you absolutely deserve to know what we want to do. Just understand that it's a very long story, and not one I intend to repeat very often."

Her heavy hand came to a rest on Frisk's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "We intend to use this research to..."

Back in the present day, Frisk is staring at Chara's locket. He's got his own in his pocket, choosing instead to simply go without it for almost all of the last three years. He's spent his time almost entirely at the complex, or walking the nearby trails with the various workers and scientists. Still, its weight in his pocket is reassuring as he considers what he's about to do.

Chara's locket is old and scarred, despite Frisk's best efforts to keep it safe. He's polished it and removed the tarnish, and he runs his thumb pad across its surface, staring at the reflection of his eyes in the surface. 

He wonders, not for the first time today, if the plan he and Toriel conceived is worth it. But he pushes that thought away. Of course it's worth it. He knows it is, more than anyone else in the multiverse could. But it's dangerous, and the worried glances he gets from passing scientists only remind him of just how dangerous it really is.

Eventually, he pockets the locket opposite his own and gets up, taking a deep breath. Through the open door, he can see Landis and one of the monster scientists working at the five-monitor control console for the central experiment of the entire complex. 

"Ready to go?" Landis asks, glancing over. 

"Not like it's gonna get easier." Frisk replies. He squeezes his hands into fists, then starts through the door.

Eight years ago, Frisk stood at the Barrier Tunnel, watching the monsters walk down the mountainside. Toriel glanced back, but Frisk simply waved and nodded. He'd be down in a minute. He was enjoying the view. And thinking.

Back in the mountain, back in the Ruins, he'd found Asriel. He hadn't had much of anything he could say, in more ways than one, but he'd hugged his friend who never was and tried in vain to encourage him to come surface-side. Asriel had finally chased him off by dead-weighting himself in the flower patch and refusing to speak, move, or acknowledge Frisk's presence. 

Frisk let out a deep breath, and kicked at the rocks. It wasn't fair. He'd tried so hard, he'd been through so much, he'd saved everyone from the Underground... except Asriel. 

The Determined Child, the Red Soul who'd come so far, had finally hit an immovable obstacle. And he didn't quite know how to handle it. He bit his lip, forcing back tears. 

Then he heard a voice, both familiar and alien, calling his name from within the tunnel. He turned back, and when it called again, he followed it in. Someone else who needed him? How could he refuse? Besides, Toriel could wait, and it'd give him more time to figure out what to do about Asriel...

The mystery voice lead Frisk back to the castle. He thought he heard Toriel call his name, but he was far too focused on the voice to check. Back around the throne, through the field of flowers, down the Judgment hallway. Frisk feels eyes on the back of his neck, but when he looks, he doesn't see the grinning skeleton he expected to. 

Instead, he sees another child. A human his age! Wearing green and yellow, their eyes hidden in the dark behind the pillar, their skin oh so pale. 

He raised a hand to them, and they stepped forward. Somehow, he still couldn't quite focus on their eyes. That was okay. He'd seen a lot of weirdness since he fell into Ebott, he reckoned this was just a little bit more. 

"Your name's Frisk, right?" The kid asked, that haunting voice almost buried behind that of a young girl. 

He nodded. 

"You want to help him, right? Asriel. You want to save him?" The kid asked, stepping forward.

Frisk frowned. Something about this whole interaction was making his skin crawl. Goosebumps rose on his arms, and he felt a shiver run up his spine. But his Determination won out, pushing his fear aside, and he nodded again.

"I can show you how. You wanna learn?"

Frisk nodded.

Chara, the kid's name was. Frisk tried to focus on what she was telling him, but for the life of him, he couldn't stop his eyes from following some kind of shadow behind her. She repeatedly stopped to ask him, with rapidly decreasing patience, if he intended to stare past her the whole time. He shook his head each time, raising his hands apologetically. 

He'd learned about Souls during his time in the Underground, not always willingly. Through his morbid discovery in the castle basement, he found out about their different colors, and through brief sojourns into the True Lab he'd learned about their different powers. He'd never been able to explain his flashes of painful death, or how he wound up in front of the monster he'd just been slain by each time. Through Chara, he learned about Loading, and the power inherent to the Red Souls. 

He could have another chance. Surely it'd go better with the benefit of knowing everything already, right? Chara's case was persuasive, and Frisk's heart ached for Asriel. There was something naggingly familiar about Chara, about Chara's name, about their outfit, but the boy had been through so much in the last few hours that his unfocused mind couldn't catch the signs. 

Frisk focused, and the Timeline unraveled around him.

Back in the present, Frisk stands in the corner, watching the cube-shaped Machine that dominates the center of the room. It's got a hollow interior, oscillating projecting devices built into its framework in the corners and along its rods. At the control console, Landis and his mouse-monster assistant are performing last minute calibrations as power trickles up from the maelstrom at the mountain's heart. 

He glances to the side. In a specialized tank resembling an oversized Soul Canister, the Green Soul formerly known as Asmore is sitting cross-legged, watching the proceedings. Their breathing is labored, and an immaterial echo of half of them launches from over either shoulder like a distorted solar flare with alarming frequency.

Three years ago, two months before Frisk left Ebott, Green had collapsed at the Dreemurr home. After careful investigation and study, the conclusion was as simple as it was strange: Green couldn't maintain their body anymore. With one Human Soul powering so much mismatched magic, things had done their best to even out. The personality of Asmore, the one that Carmen had known, was core to the Green Soul. The two halves that used to be parts of Chara and Asriel, however, were deteriorating. 

They had to be rehomed, not an easy process at all.

Frisk jolts out of his memories when Green taps on the tank. They give him a smile and a shaky thumbs-up, and Frisk responds with a thumbs up of his own. 

"We're ready!" Landis exclaims. "Let's start this show!"

The machine's hum jumping in volume is Frisk's cue to tense his muscles. He's moved to the top of the ramp leading down into the cube, staring at it intensely. Beside him, a lone monitor streams data about the orientation of the projectors and the power level inside the cube. 

Deep below, buried in the rock above the maelstrom, powerful collectors come to life. Magic siphons upward, raw and untamed, flowing straight into the circuitry of the machine. 

The oscillators rotate, and the projectors switch on. It's a process Frisk has seen several times before, in testing. Waves of magic collide with each other in specific patterns, tugging the Timeline one way, then pushing it another. As the waves increase in strength and frequency, eventually the Timeline's wall begins to rupture, small at first, but growing bigger. A portal, a tear in reality. 

Through it, Frisk can see the wildly flickering images of other Timelines, other realities, various voidspaces. He grits his teeth. This isn't what he needs, and everyone present knows it. He grabs a keyboard, then focuses, breathing in deep and long. 

The entire timeline slows around him. It's so smooth, only Sentiment might even notice it at the end of the day. He stares straight ahead, watching the flickering slow to a crawl. Slower. Slower still. 

As the view is shifting from a parallel timeline to the voidspace near the timeline itself, Frisk stops time.

There, in the center of the clearly-defined edges of the portal, lies Nothing. He exhales, then quickly notes the oscillator combination that led to that result. As he releases the hold on the timeline, he types the angles and intensities into the computer, locking the projectors in place. 

"Nice job." Landis says, quietly. He, and all the other techs, try not to let their eyes slide off of the Nothing window. It's hard. Their minds dislike it, their eyes blurring to try to make it go away. "We'll be waiting."

One year ago, Frisk started to talk to Rene Dreemurr via text message. He asked her about the Nothingness between the layers of dimensions, the gap space between realities. She warned him to stay away from it. 

He understands why, as he steps through the portal. His throat and lungs burn as the air he was breathing becomes Nothing, his eyes sting as Nothing hits them, his stomach drops as his feet step onto Nothing, his ears ring, his skin crawls. He groans, and his ears pick it up along with the oppressive sound of the Nothing around him. 

He starts walking. The only indicator that he's gone anywhere is that the portal has gotten smaller behind him. He walks, and he walks. 

Until eventually he finally finds what he was looking for the whole time, there in the distance. 

Chara Dreemurr, on her knees in the middle of the Nothing, alone.

Whatever Chara's reason for being in the Nothing, it's kept her body frozen perfectly in time. Frisk hesitates before stepping closer. This is stupid. He's stupid. Why does he even think he can-

He shakes his head, chasing those thoughts away. He thinks he can because, if anyone can, he can. Because Green's relying on him. Because Chara needs him, and that's not a thought he ever thought he'd have. 

He steps forward, and freezes when her head snaps up. She stands and cracks her neck, then looks him up and down.

"Frisk." She says, emphasizing the 'k' as hard as she can. "You must be real fuckin' stupid to come lookin' for me."

"Yeah. Must be." Frisk says. He watches. A flicker of distortion, a glimpse of movement at the edge of his perception, any sign that he's right and this isn't all a big waste of time.

"Did you think lookin' like my brother would make me give a shit about you comin' here?" Chara asks, pulling a knife from behind her back and pointing it at the monster. "'cause all it makes me want to do is teach you a lesson for runnin' off."

"Shut up for a second." Frisk says. There? No. Perhaps. The Nothing is playing tricks on his eyes, making it so, so hard to figure out what's really there. 

Chara sneers. "What, came all this way and you don't wanna talk? I-"

There.

A wave of red washes over the Nothing, and Frisk gathers his powerful magic into his hands, flinging a loose blast of it at the tiny bit of motion he'd seen. While Chara froze to a halt, the Nothing behind her recoiled from the blast of red magic.

It coalesced into a vaguely human shape, almost like a cutout suddenly gaining an edge. It stared at Frisk, ducking another blast of magic, then started to cackle with laughter.

He took a deep breath, wincing at the burning of his lungs from the attempt, and started circulating red magic through his body. It felt like it might boil his blood, sparks of raw red magic jumping between his fingers, lancing from his legs to the ground, dancing in his fur.

Bingo.

Rene Dreemurr, a Chara of another timeline, had once encountered an actual incursion of Nothing. In it, she had used Determination and time magic to destroy the independent pieces of Nothing that attempted to breach into her timeline. She'd described to Frisk how the Nothing had grown bolder as it approached her, how it took on shapes that were familiar to her, and how- if she didn't strike true with her conjured blade- it interacted with her magic in unpredictable ways. 

Rene hadn't let the Nothing reach the point where it could be described as a living creature all by itself. She hadn't faced anything like the creature that now stands in front of Frisk.

It shakes its 'head', clapping its hands once. "I'm impressed! Look at you, Frisk. The little scared boy, all grown up. To think you'd figure me out!"

Frisk growls, baring his fangs at the creature. 

"Ooh, very frightening." It says. "Did you come all this way just to try to scare me? Or... OH!"

It howls with laughter again, and Frisk gathers another blast into his right hand, slinging it. The creature steps to the side, and it splashes against the Nothing behind it.

"You came here for her! Oh, that's RICH! The infamous Frisk mercy! You came here for CHARA!"

"You talk too much." Frisk says, glancing at Chara. The time-stop holds, for now. While the Nothing is, of course, completely divorced from any concept of time, Chara herself is subject to its flow just like anything else.

He wonders how many of the years she's actually even been aware for.

"Well, you can't have that soulless abomination. She's mine." The creature says, suddenly standing stiffly upright. "It took a lot of work to worm my way into her every little bit of being, you know."

Frisk grimaces. He remembers what that was like all too well. At first, when Chara took control, he'd believed it was something akin to a ghost possessing him. A year in, however, he'd started to notice the strands of Nothing running through their combined body. It'd been the first thing that reminded him of that ghostly image behind her in their first meeting, during the rare quiet moments he had to reflect on things. 

"Unless you're volunteering to come back and take her place...?" The creature sneers. 

Frisk outright snarls, and rushes at the creature with his magic burning, pushing as much of the volatile red power into his fists as he can. The creature stands still- cocky or stupid, Frisk thinks- and takes a flurry of red-magic charged punches directly to its crossed arms. 

The resulting blast compresses the Nothing around the pair, dragging the portal closer and nearly throwing Frisk through it. Time warps inside of him, and his yell is suddenly cut short, nothing but quiet air escaping his throat. The creature howls, and the Nothing ripples as two neat holes tear open in its arms. 

Frisk's vision blurs. Even Chara collapses as the shockwave of the blast flows over her body. Back in the control room, the scientists- now joined by Toriel- stare at the sudden, intense spike in energy the portal is putting out. 

Frisk's ears are ringing. His head spins. His body feels wrong, his limbs not cooperating. As the creature struggles to repair the damage the boy's strikes did to its body, Frisk struggles simply to use his senses.

Time twists in on itself again, and Frisk lets out another silent cry, his magic starting to feed back on itself. He knows, somewhere in his jumbled thoughts, that he needs to get control back. Deep breaths. Remember what Toriel taught him. Remember the lessons he learned from Rene, the breathing exercises he practiced with Green. Focus, damn it, before he tore himself apart.

Things slowly assert themselves around Frisk again. He closes his eyes, his head pounding. His hands curl against the ground. 

Something's wrong, immediately. His fingers are thinner than they should be, his palms smoother. He opens his eyes and stares, confused, at his once again human hands. His clothes are a little too big without his fur, his head lighter without the horns on it. It's as though he never died that fateful time in the Barrier Tunnel- no, not even that. 

"What...?" He whispers, or tries to whisper. Instead, he can only manage a soft wheeze. He sits up on his knees, his hands flying to his throat. Sure enough, that childhood scar is there again, the one that he'd lost so long ago. It's a bit faded, but it's recognizable to him. 

He shudders, fingers tracing along it, then winces at the howling laughter from across the Nothing.

The creature's arms haven't fully recovered, but it's still doubled over with laughter, pointing at Frisk. "You idiot! You total fuckup! Did you really think things would be that easy? And now look at you!"

Frisk pushes himself shakily to his feet, still crackling with red magic. His body burns, but he won't give the creature the satisfaction of knowing that. He's got too much circulating within him, and he needs to burn it off somehow, his Soul pumping magic in overdrive. 

"What's the matter? No snappy comeback?" The creature asks, a Cheshire grin appearing on what would be a face on any other creature. 

Frisk tries to tell it to fuck off, but the words won't come. He wheezes instead, quietly, and shudders again.

"Oh. Oh my." The creature says. "Don't tell me you're all broken again, Frisk. I'd hate to think my effort in fixing you went to waste after all."

Frisk gathers his magic to his hands again. The attack didn't work, and to try again might kill him. But he has to at least put up a show. He can't let this thing know that he's shaken. His mind races.

"You can't speak!" The creature exclaims, its tone shifting to gloating. "I wonder if even your precious Sansy remembers what the real Frisk was like, before I got my hands on him! Broken and pathetic!"

Frisk swallows his anger, tries to keep his focus. There has to be something he can do...

His eyes are drawn to Chara. She's on her feet again, or perhaps never really collapsed at this point. Time has gone completely pretzel-shaped thanks to Frisk, and its results are striking. Frisk's magic overload slammed into Chara with the force of a tidal wave, and even frozen in place as she is, the creature's careful control of her physical age has been replaced with a stunned girl about Frisk's age, her hair down to her waist (amazing what eight years without a haircut will do) and her body just as lanky as Frisk's. 

Chara Dreemurr.

Could Frisk even begin to trust her? He wonders if he's ever even really met her. He stares at her, then glances at the creature. Back to Chara.

If he doesn't take a chance, he might as well be dead anyway. He fishes in his pocket, produces her old locket. 

One shot at this, he reminds himself.

Without looking at the creature, he launches into a dead sprint at Chara, squeezing his hand tight around the locket.

"What do you think-" The creature starts, but Frisk tunes him out. He reaches out and knocks the knife out of Chara's hand, nearly stumbling over his own two feet in the process. As he makes contact with her hand, he starts to collapse the time-stop bubble around them. 

He presses the locket into her hand and holds it there with his own as tightly as he can. He throws his other arm around her shoulders, pulling her chest-to-chest with him and closing his eyes tight. 

As the bubble's edge approaches, he thinks a quiet prayer in the hopes that he's not making a fatal mistake.

And then, just like that, it's time. The bubble edge reaches the pair, and as life starts to return to Chara- the creature saying something about how it'll just have Chara kill him- Frisk does the unthinkable.

He projects his Soul directly forward, his body tensing, still coursing with red magic.

The dynamo of red power slams into the threads of Nothingness that have been woven into Chara's body for so long, and as soon as it makes contact, it lights them aflame with its magic. Frisk doesn't relent. He pushes as hard as he can, his Soul boring into Chara's body like a laser. 

Chara cries out, hoarse, as the Red Soul pushes naturally toward the gap where hers once sat. The creature howls in agony, its tendrils and strings burning away and snapping free from the sheer force of Frisk's magic. 

For the briefest moment, Frisk's eyes meet Chara's, and the two Fallen Children finally see each other for the first time.

Then, as the power surges through Chara's body and ripples out toward the creature, Frisk's vision goes black. He slumps against her, comatose, as his Soul fully disconnects.

And for the first time in an unknowable number of years, Chara Dreemurr feels warmth in her chest again.

The first thing that passes through Chara's mind, remarkably clear as it feels at the moment, is that she's going to have to kick Frisk's ass for that boneheaded move.

The second is that Frisk is heavier than his build would indicate, and she pulls him up to support him with her shoulder, putting on the locket to keep it safe. 

The third, more pressing thought, is that her body feels like it's on fire. She flinches at the sound of the creature howling again. Her many, many questions and worries and feelings can be sorted through when they're not both in mortal danger.

She takes an unsteady step toward the portal. Then another. Frisk's legs drag, and she grunts, reflexively sending a shock of magic through his body to encourage movement. 

This somehow works. If she had time to think about it, she'd probably chalk it up to intuition from having Frisk's Soul in her. Unimportant at the moment. 

The creature, Determination burning at its insides, lashes out at Frisk's body. Its damaged limbs impact, but bounce away, new red flames jumping from his overcharged skin into it. 

Two more steps. Chara's head is starting to swim. She blinks away double-vision.

One more step. Frisk's foot drags, and she pulses magic into him again, biting her cheek to keep her focus from slipping. 

The creature lunges, in a desperate bid to keep its prize and its prey from escaping. It bounces again, the pair both damn near glowing with red magic and raw Determination. 

Then Chara hauls herself across the portal threshold, and Frisk with her.

The pair tumble into the Timeline again, Chara losing her footing as exhaustion and the aftereffects of the possession set in. She and Frisk sprawl on the hard floor, and Landis immediately cuts off the machine, the portal dispersing behind them.

Toriel runs forward. Chara can vaguely hear her yelling for medical attention, for stretchers and a room to be readied in the medical center. It's a voice she hasn't heard properly in so long. 

She feels Toriel's hands on her, gently checking her pulse, then stroking once across her hair. She tries to reach up and return the contact, but her body simply can't continue.

The two Fallen Children, both unconscious, lay side by side on the floor of the chamber. 

Outside, in the rest of the timeline, there's a discernable shift in the air. Only those truly sensitive to it, like Sentiment or Carmen, would recognize it for what it was. 

For the first time since Frisk fell into the underground so long ago, the Determinant of the Timeline has changed.


	2. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To wake up her daughter, and to save Green's life, Toriel Dreemurr turns to the best soul scientist she knows.

If Shy bothers to check, the coordinates lead to a location deep in the Swiss Alps, at an otherwise unremarkable mountain about halfway to the peak. 

The outside of the building is slate grey and has no windows. It's a small building above-ground, almost more like a fortified bunker, and the front doors are heavy metal that wouldn't look out of place on a tank. Standing in front of them, Toriel waits patiently, wearing an insulated version of her regular robe and a hat to keep her ears warm. 

The view is magnificent.

Shy's teleport fizzes, carbonatedly depositing a very large unwieldy marshmallow in front of Toriel. Her tail swings out for balance, and Shy peeks out of her enormous scarf and puffy jacket combo at... the door the view her liege the height the door? Her warm booties make creaky crunchy sounds from disuse as she rocks on her toes. 

"hhhhey? hi qu- mmMizz.... um. Toriel."

Toriel smiles warmly. "Hello. I'm so glad you came, Shy. I know this was short notice, and I hoped to reconnect in a more pleasant way, but, well..."

She glances back at the door, and her face has a brief flash of worry. "Things happened. I hope the trip wasn't too taxing."

That brings forth a weak smile, followed immediately by a look like the bottom fell out. "it's okay, i.... h-happened? what was.. what was there to happen?"

Toriel shakes her head, reaching into her pocket. A moment later, the doors grind open, unnervingly silent for their size. "I assure you, nobody is seriously injured. It's a complicated problem. I'll explain on the way."

She starts toward the doors. Inside, a plain elevator door awaits, with a larger cargo elevator beside it. Tori goes to the elevator door and opens it with a keycard, then turns to Shy, waving her in.

Hemming and hawing will only get Shy left behind, so she scurries over, trying to stop herself fidgeting her fingers together by fidgeting them seperately in her jacket pockets. Creaky shoes.

"w-wait, seriously injured? what..???"

Such creaky shoes. The elevator slides shut behind them, and starts its descent. 

"When was the last time you spoke to Frisk?" Toriel asks.

The bottom keeps falling further. Shy looks down at her shoes, with the easy velcro straps, and the little glitter bits she liked. ".....probably too long. uh. years?"

"It's not your fault. He didn't make himself easy to reach." Tori says. She reaches out to Shy, offering her hand. "Even I didn't hear from him for a while. About three years ago, though, I found his number and reached out to him for help with something at this lab."

Shy looks at Tori's hand for a hot second before.... taking it? Holding hands. Right. Yes. This is what we do with queens, we hold their hands. "o-oh?" She asks, before words get parsed again. 'Lab'. She actually looks up at Tori. "oh??"

Toriel nods. "Several years ago, some humans found out that this mountain contains a power source that's extremely similar to what the Core was before we built the machinery there. I found out, and funded the construction of a lab building here to study it and its connection to the void, and so on."

She sighs wistfully. "I admit, most of the research goes over this old monster's head. But if Frisk found this place exciting, I hope you will too."

Flicky tailtip, thinking like a metronome. "like, like the pre-Core.. what, a volcano?... with connections to the void......"

Her free hand comes out of her pocket, claws tapping on her cheek. More metronome power.

"what're.... what's the directive for the lab? why?" She asks.

"Well, its initial research has been into the edges of the timeline, as I understand it. Probing the walls, if you will. Since the Core harnesses all of the magic coming out of Ebott, and uses it to power so much, it's not as good as it could be for this. At least, that's what Benjamin says. Ah, Benjamin is- he's the director of the lab. One of my new Royal Scientist Corps."

Tori clears her throat, giving Shy's hand a little squeeze. "A group that still has openings, I might add."

Oh okay, that makes sense, yeah. Shy's nodding, thinking along the steps and slowly tuning out, and then mentally stumbles. Eh?

"cor... royal? royal scientist corps?"

Ah, of course, a team of people to do your job!! No, this is great. This is good. Tori thinks so, so it probably is.

"That still.... oh. Oh."

"...think it over, okay? It would be amazing to have you back, Shy." Tori says. "As for my interest in this lab's experiments... I have... a child in my care. A Green Soul with fragments of human and monster soul-magic melded to them. It's... a long story. At any rate, they've been declining in health, and we traced it to a problem of there being too much extra magic for the soul to support. Frisk went looking for someone to take some of the extra magic, and while he found them, ah... it turned out to be more complicated than we hoped it would be. That's why I asked you to come. Right now, there are three children, two human souls, and nobody with the kind of expertise you have to figure out the mess."

Shy's turn to save...! Something. Boy this is going to Go Well™. She turns a Very Concerned face up to Tori.

"no s-serious injuries, huh? i can, can definitely... try to help, but i'm not sure.. how well i can. it's been a, a really long time since i've done anything with souls.."

"I believe in you, Shy." Toriel says, with a warm, motherly smile. "If there's anyone who can do it, you can. You have my full support and all of the resources possible. If there's anything you need-" She pauses, then winks. "Or want, just let me know. Being Queen has some financial benefits, after all."

Damn, okay, uhhhHHHH. A very wobbly smile rolls across her face, even reaching her eyes a bit.

"....th-thanks, Toriel. that, uh, that really helps."

"Of course, Shy." Toriel says. The elevator dings- finally- and the doors open to reveal the shining interior of the lab. No tortoise awaits the pair with a gun, this time. Toriel's keycard has special benefits. She leads Shy out and into the hall, past thick windows showing a reception area behind one door and a guard post behind another.

The Tortoise is there and waves at them as they pass, getting a polite wave back from Toriel.

Shy's a bit distracted by dim memories of her own Lab, the hall sending her down a small nostalgia path. She glances at the Tortoise, catching his eyes, but doesn't wave. It's cozy down here. Very professional.

Past this initial hallway, the floor opens up slightly. Toriel takes her past a half-full cafeteria, monsters and humans alike discussing results and sharing stories while they eat. Further down the hallway, to a fork, and Toriel heads left toward the medical wing. 

Even down this hall, rooms go by full of all kinds of equipment. Experiments familiar and unfamiliar are being performed in the labs the pair go past. Thankfully, nothing nearly as ghoulish as the DT Extractor shows up, though one tech is working with a computer model of a human soul's output in various spectra. 

Tori stops at the entrance to the medical wing, turning back to Shy. "Here we are. All three of them are inside. Green- that is, the green soul- has been awake since about two hours ago, but the other two are both still unconscious."

Shy steals quick peeks at all these machinery rooms, a lagging step for the room with the digital soul output (that's so cool? why didn't? we do that? could we have done that?) before nearly tripping as Tori continues. She manages not to run into Tori's hip when they stop, and remembers to be concerned (hurt children). Right.

"o k a y. okay. we're.... i'm ? i'm not sure how this is going to t-turn out, your Majes- Toriel."

"Take deep breaths. There's nobody in this building I trust with this more than you." Toriel says, kneeling down to eye level with the relatively diminutive lizard. "You're not going to have to do any medical work. The nurses have been taking care of that. Green can explain what they need done, and you can work from there."

Another gentle handsqueeze. "If you feel overwhelmed, I'll be right here in the hallway. Okay?"

Shy.. squeezes back, and nods. okay. Okay. A glance from the door to Tori and back to the door... and she lets go of her queen to slip through the doors, tail curling in after her quickly to not get caught.

Toriel stands, and waits. She hopes she won't see Shy sprinting back outside anytime soon, but... 

Inside, the medical facility is clean and well-organized. One of the two beds in the sub-room closest to the door is visible, and Frisk- human Frisk- lays in it, eyes closed, completely unconscious. In a tank beside him that's a little bit chillingly close to resembling the soul canisters of old sits Green. They're apparently meditating, but they look up when Shy enters and then stand, smiling and waving her over. Apparently, Shy's arrival was expected.

Green, green soul, chillin in a big soul canister, yep! yeap that's how we do things, souls go in canisters. big soul, big canister. Shy goes over, fidgeting her claws together as she takes in the room. Frisk is.. alive, stable. Green is here, awake. Third child, third bed? Probably. She rests her clawtips lightly on the container.

"h-hello?"

Third Child is indeed in Third Bed. They're unfamiliar, their face obscured by a substantial amount of hair, but they seem stable and they're breathing normally. They're under their blankets, obscuring any clothing they're wearing. 

"Hello!" Green nods. "You must be Shy. Alphys? Um. Shy, mom said to call you Shy. I'm Green. Nice to meet you."

"Shy, y-yes! On account of the, the um. The everybody. It's..? nice to mmmeet you?" Flicky tail, nervous this time. Unfamiliar Third Child Located. Probably alive, though.

"Tor- your mum said you had? ideas? i'm here to, to help. hopefully."

"Well, uh. I know this is going to sound weird. But I'm, uh... there's a lot of extra stuff in me. I'm like... mashed up between two people and a third soul. It's really hard to explain, buuut."

Green shakes their head. "My idea is, you could just, like, take some of the extra stuff out. It has t'go somewhere, so Frisk thought he'd go find someone who could take it."

Nod nod, this sounds reasonable. The energy transfer, at least, but the fusion isn't too far past anything that's happened near her. Her claws come back up to her cheek, tapping as she thinks.

"okay, that's.. probably possible. is.... the third person is the.. receptacle recieving point?"

Green nods. "Yeah. She's still sleepin' right now, but Frisk went into this portal and found her earlier. I guess somethin' happened to them, 'cause she came out carryin' him, and then she passed out too, but... they're not hurt, I think? The nurses said they weren't hurt."

Now that doesn't sound like any old myth i've heard of, no sirree bob. kids carrying kids? nah. Shy looks back over towards them, not exactly at them.

"that's.. good, her, uh, her integrity is important if there's going to be soul energy transfer..."

"...Tori said I probably shouldn't mention this, but Doc Landis was saying that she has Frisk's Soul in her." Green said, fidgeting a little. It wasn't like anything bad would happen just from making sure Shy knew what was going on... right?

Can Shy even manage hard looks anymore? There's a flash of one before she feels like she's slipped on ice, careening wildly towards conclusions. "She has-?? how'd? did he just? frisk you can't just-" She scuttles over to Frisk and prods him gently with magic. Soul? soul are you there? ping.

Frisk's bodily response is to flare with red magic, but there's no Soul there. The leftover magic settles again after a moment, flowing under his skin. It's like he's made himself into some kind of battery to hold it.

Green leans on the glass. "I mean... every time someone tells Frisk he can't do somethin', he usually does it anyway, heh."

A nervous 'heh'. They didn't mess up, did they?

"y-yeah but ?? oh frisk.." She leans on his bed for a sec, head down. you gotta stop raising ur local adults' blood pressure. they don't even have blood. Tail drooping to rest on the ground, she looks over at the other bed. He pulled someone out of a portal..? honestly this could be anybody.

"wh-who even is? this?"

Small steps take her around Frisk's bed to the Mystery Child, whom she also magically pokes. helloooo? soul?

Soul! Pong. It thrums, resonating in response to the poke. From its tone, it's clear that it's been putting out a geyser of magic lately, enough that Frisk should by rights have blown a hole in the timeline with it. Which meant he wasn't doing it in the timeline.

The other kid, still out like a light, does shift slightly in response to the magic. Enough for the sheet to move, revealing a characteristic green and yellow sweater on her shoulder, stretched but recognizable.

The royal portraits weren't usually in cozy sweaters, but Shy scrunches her nose all the same. Suspicious. She turns back to Green. "y-you said he brought her back through a portal..? what else did you.. hear? see?"

"Um. The portal made my eyes hurt. It was like it didn't go to anything. Like there wasn't anythin' where it was." Green rubs their head, scratching at the still-velvet-covered horns that they're oh so proud of despite how itchy they are. "Mom was really, really worried about Frisk, but she was cryin' about that girl. Like they were both really important?"

They frown. "Sorry. I didn't really get told too much else. I think Frisk said somethin' about keeping it secret from Carmen?"

Somebody from the actual void, not just Another Timeline... thinkphys.png. "n-no that's fine, it's..."

Important. It's very important. She's very important and we Can't Tell Carmen.

...we can't tell Carmen, Toriel was very upset, and she has Frisk's red soul..

"....................... hey green? i'm uh i'll be right. right back.." Shy says, tweening to the doors cartoonishly.

"...is everything okay?" Green asks, leaning to keep her in view. Nooo friend come back.

"yeah everything's fine it's cool it's good hey tori el" Shy sticks her head through the door and makes A Face™ at Tori. Included in the face is some What the fuckie, a healthy dose of ?????????, a pinch of You tricked me, and the incoming baseline of deception, disgrace, evil as plain as the nose on your face.

Toriel is already pinching between her eyes, and shakes her head. "Yeeees?"

As though she doesn't know.

"toriel?!??!?" Shy's voice is a quiet hiss. If she had mammalian ears they would be flat back, but instead she's shaking a little. "this?? it's????? she's????????"

"She is my daughter." Toriel says, flatly. "Yes. I know."

"toriel she tried ?? to ????" Shy slithers all the way through the door, closing it behind her. Sorry Green, hold on. "i. toriel i just."

Whether or not she actually wants to run, she can't. The batteries in her teleporter hadn't been charged for months, because... that's what happens. Lots of things hadn't been done for months. or years. She's stuck.

"my queen, your majesty, wwwwhat did y-you get me into??"

"I know what she's done." Toriel says. She sighs. In that moment, more than any other time anyone outside of Asgore and her immediate family have ever seen her, she looks so tired. The weight of her centuries of life finally shows on her, for just a moment. The effort of being the most public face of the monsters' reemergence reflects in her expression. The toll of eight dead children- children she took responsibility for, one of whom she birthed- shows in her eyes.

Then she's collected again, standing tall, the Queen she's always been in one way or another. "What do you want me to tell you? That she's not Chara? She is. Frisk did something on the other side of that portal, and she carried him back through. Whatever my daughter might be, I trust Frisk's judgment of her more than anybody else's, and I fail to see how she could get his Soul without him giving it willingly or dying."

Shy looks crestfallen, tears welling up. Oh Toriel.... regal public face of monsterkind, her exhausted queen. she should do something about this, she should, should invent something to ease her way, she was the royal scientist, it was her duty- she looks down, a big fat tear landing on her boot. Not the floor, good. don't make maintenance's life harder. She sniffs hard, and scrubs at her face with a hand.  
"...i'll do it. i won't let you d-down, toriel."

".. thank you, Shy." Toriel says. "Everything I told you on the way here, I meant it. I simply didn't know how you would react if you knew, and- to see her face again, after so long, even like this, I-"

She inhales, and reaches out a hand to wipe Shy's tears. A mother above all else. "I won't ask you to forgive her. I'm not sure even I can do that, not without talking to her and Frisk first. But.. for Green's sake, if nothing else, thank you."

The soft touch of a soft hand nearly makes her burst into tears again, but she snifs real hard and turns back to the door, and slips through it. She weakly smiles at Green, and heads over to them.  
"o-okay, so. so.... you said you were a, a mashup of different people? who's all in there..?"

"... um..." Green sits back down. "Well, the way Doc Landis describes it, there's three bits to me. The bit that's me is in this."

They hold their hands up to their chest, and gently reveal a Green Soul, one whose surface features are alarmingly familiar to Shy. Green doesn't seem aware of their own history in that regard, however, and they let the Soul hang in the open air of the tank, smiling. "Otherwise, there's, um... Landis calls 'em "remnants" of Asriel and Chara. And he says those are the problem."

Shy manages not to flinch at that pretty Green Soul, and then. looks at the ceiling like it's got a secret camera. Okay. okay, this makes it easier.

"alright. that's good, a-actually. is it uh. possible for you to? separate out further.....?" 'or will i need to rend you apart inside that canister' is the end of that sentence, but. nah.

"It's kinda hard, but um... maybe." Green says. They pull the soul back into their body, then stand up and take a deep breath.

It takes the kid a moment, but sure enough, two distinct magical afterimages start to spread out behind them. One is simply Chara, as Shy knew of her- the first Fallen Human, the subject of entirely too many myths and stories, the human who had the hopes of an entire race placed squarely upon their shoulders. Her face is hidden by a bouquet of golden flowers, but it's unmistakably her. 

The other is brighter, less clear, but appears to be Asriel standing beside an unfortunately all-too-familiar yellow flower, back to back. Like Chara, his face is hidden, this time by the placement of his ears- but that he's looking at the ground doesn't speak to a happy expression.

Oh boy. She puts her hands flat on the canister wall, just.... watching for a second, before pulling out her cellphone and opening a homebrew scanning app. "okay hold, hold on, you're doing gre at-" Tappy tap, aim the camera at the three beings... three similar but distinct enough magic signatures. She doubletaps chara's, bringing up an analytical screen with a hot bunch of info. "okay. okay pull back together, i got it."

Green exhales, and they snap back into place, knocking the poor kid back onto his knees. Whoops. "Whoa! Uh. Okay! You think you can help, Miss Shy? Mom said you were the smartest person there was about this stuff."

Something that sounds kind of like a laugh and a snort briefly escapes her, and she nods, scooting over to one of the computers in the room. Navigating the system is easy enough, plugging in the Exact Details from her phone into a small, fiddly piece of software somebody wrote years ago and didn't comment any of their code in is a little bit harder. "i can help, y-yeah. i'm.. m-maybe not the best, but i'm what you've got."

"If mom thinks you're the best, then mom's probably right." Green says, and sits back in the tube to wait. 

At least the computers are fast- Toriel, being Toriel, probably made sure the ones in the medical facility were up to date before she checked the ones in the labs.

Double-check the data, this is important. It's all good! Shy investigates some cabinets and comes up from them with some reenforced tubing and sockets, and a size adapter. Big tubes attach to ports in Green's canister, adapter to smaller tubes, to... hm. She digs out an oxygen mask from another cupboard, and attaches the small end to that, and then.... very very carefully applies the mask to Chara. She has to gently sweep some of that hair aside, and she looks like a poster for "have you seen this child? here they are aged up ten years". Shy shudders, and huffs and puffs to shove the two beds together as much as she can, and then goes to peek out the door. "i... i think it's ready. do you want... to um. to wat c h?"

Toriel is sitting in the hall, staring at her phone. Part of her knows that Sentiment and Carmen deserve to know about this, but the risk that they'll simply take drastic action against Chara before she can even wake up...

When Shy speaks, she looks up and nods, standing and walking inside with her. "Yes, thank you. Did everything go well so far?"

"y-yeah, i got a good trace on the ch-chara part of Green-" She gestures to the computer screen, open to an extraction program she made...... ages ago. "-and i've got it hooked up to, to her over there, just so there's no mistaking where it's all going, and she's close to him just in case his soul jumps-" Fidget fidget. She goes over to Green and puts her hands on the canister again. "h-hey i'm not.. i'm not sure what you're going to feel, but it's gonna be something, and i-i'm so so sorry."

Green shakes their head.

"Even if it hurts, least m'gonna be ok. That's the important thing, right?"

Toriel sighs, but smiles. "My brave kid. All right, Shy. Very impressive work. Green, I'm right here, all right?"

Green nods. "Okay! I'm not scared, though!"

"Good. Shy, whenever you're ready."

Deep breath. Back to the computer console. She hooks up her phone, which pops up a little diagnostics screen with little digital levers and buttons. Easier than dragging the peripheral out, really, and she sets up a flow rate, an extraction pressure, a timer... okay.

She looks up at Green and Tori, then over to the two kids, and slaps the keyboard.

The little leds around the canister-side port (oh good! they kept those in the bigger design) light up, and the canister itself starts to thrum as machinery in the caps starts up. It's like a kitchen hood but upside down, slowly pulling a thread of self, of afterimage through the extraction fan at the bottom, out the tubing, and along to Chara.

Green lets out a slightly strained "Rrnnn," as the machinery starts up. The feeling is odd, and they're not sure they could describe it if asked. Given time, they might compare it to your arm being put through a pasta maker, but it's not really your arm, and there's no bones. 

Green is a strange kid.

On Chara's end, her even breathing picks up slightly as the magic essence enters her body. Frisk's Soul doesn't reject her, despite this. Perhaps it spent too long around her while the two were sharing the same body. Regardless, instead, it starts to pull, settling the essence into place faster through its efforts. 

Most of the way through this process, Chara's fingers start to curl against the sheets, squeezing the mattress tighter than an unconscious reflex would usually cause. She groans quietly, but doesn't yet open her eyes. She feels odd- like a blanket is being put down inside of her- but it's a far better feeling than anything she's had for the last... 

...she's not sure how long. She savors just the feeling of breathing, of touching, of being. For once, her senses aren't dulled, her head is clear and getting clearer every second. She wants this to last.

Toriel looks at Shy, her hands tightly clasped in front of her. It's all the anxiety she'll allow herself to show, for now.

This is going.... very well. Shy allows herself a small smile, flashing it at Toriel, and turning to her phone screen. She tweaks some dials, pushes a little lever. The thread of essence thickens, the timer decreases. The machinery is holding up well, none of these numbers are off.... "a third through, the increase should have this o-over with faster"

Toriel nods- and her gaze softens, looking past Shy. 

Chara is awake. She's looking at the pair with half-lidded eyes, not even trying to sit up yet. She's not sizing them up, she doesn't look particularly angry. She looks confused, and maybe worried, her brow furrowed. But she's not trying to remove the mask, and she's not sitting up, and it's largely because whatever's happening seems too important to interrupt.

Toriel's hands tighten around each other to the point that Shy can see the tension in how they shake. "Chara." She says, quietly. "Oh, Chara."

Shy looks up enough to recognize that she can't watch Toriel anguish over her child, so she looks back down. She flicks the rate up just one more tick, and glances over at Green. Their info looks about correct for someone who's theoretically having part of themselves ripped out by a really strong vacuum cleaner, but damn that doesn't look comfortable. She grimaces, and wonders if she can make it up to them somehow.

The timer ticks down. 20.. 15... 10.... 5.......

As soon as it finishes, Green jumps to their feet again and throws their arms in the air. "Yeaaah! Did it!"

Toriel can't help but give Green a small smile. But her mind is at the other end of the tube, and she turns to Chara, meeting her daughter's eyes. 

"Shy," She says. "You did excellently. I would be honored to have you working on whatever project you thought was worth pursuing. But for right now, I hate to be rude, but could you please take Green and leave the room?"

Chara doesn't speak. She's not even sure if she can at the moment. But she doesn't avoid Toriel's eyes, as easy as it would be to close hers again. 

So long, both of them have thought about what they might say in this moment. And now it's here, and neither of them can find any words to say to the other yet.

Eh? oh. OH. fuck yes okay, we're Leaving The Room. she scurries over to the canister and pats some buttons quickly, the typical Pshhhhh of hydraulic release preceding the tube of the canister itself to tilt and lift up. There's quickly enough room for Green to slide out and.. Shy hasn't carried anyone in a million years but it's Time To Leave we Have To Leave. "hey, hey, cmon let's find like a, a lounge or a kitchen or, or-"

Green slides out, blinks at Shy's desperation, then grabs her hand and starts toward the door. "I know where the cafeteria is~" They say, with an almost singsong voice. No time to be scared, or worried about what's happening with Chara and Toriel- their new friend is scared, so they have to be brave!


	3. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chara Dreemurr is awake. Now, faced with the prospect of talking to her mother for the first time in decades, can she even find the words to say?

Chara tries not to feel afraid. It's hard. She hasn't felt anything but angry in so long. Toriel steps forward, arms crossed, and for a long moment the pair simply stare at each other.

Chara breaks first. First just tears, then ugly sobbing. Part of her is deeply thankful that Frisk isn't awake to see this. "I." She hiccups. Words aren't easy right now.

Toriel shakes her head, tears welling up in her eyes, too. The first one she lost, the one that broke her heart the most, laying there on the bed in front of her. 

Even with all of Chara's history, all of the things she's been accused of, Toriel can't help herself. She reaches down, pulling her sobbing child into her arms, and holds her daughter for the first time in over a hundred years. Chara reaches up and pulls herself into a tight embrace, grabbing fistfuls of Toriel's robes.

"I'm sorry." She manages, between heaving sobs.

"I know." Toriel says, and places one hand on the back of Chara's head. "Me too."  
The pair simply cry together, for almost thirty minutes. Every time Chara's will to face Toriel starts to falter, the urge to push away crawls into her mind, Frisk's determination flares in her chest and pulls her back. Every time Toriel starts to feel that old fear, the worry that the things others think of her daughter are who she really is, she simply strokes Chara's hair and remembers those early days. 

After a while, she starts to hum, a quiet song from Chara and Asriel's childhood. Something from a music box, a lullaby from long ago. Chara's grip on her tightens, and she listens, and she tries to join in. Her attempts are thwarted each time by a new round of sobs wracking her body, but she doesn't stop trying. She knows that song. 

Deep inside, that song means love. It means safety. It means "you're home."

An hour after she first woke up, Chara finally manages to quiet her sobbing. Toriel is rocking her side to side gently, still humming, still crying. Chara lifts her head to look into Toriel's eyes, and even now, is almost surprised to see their softness and kindness. No hate. No fear. 

After everything she's done, after everything she's been through, Chara Dreemurr is still Toriel's daughter.

"I have-" Chara starts. Chokes on the words. Toriel rubs her back, then reaches for a small plastic cup of water, which Chara takes in her shaking hands. She downs it quickly, desperate to clear her throat. "Frisk gave me, his, he."

"I know." Toriel says again. She glances behind Chara, at the unconscious boy on the bed. "Do you know why? He's... still not awake."

Chara bites back the impulse to say it's because Frisk is an idiot. She takes a deep breath, tries to think. So much of what was happening was a blur. She knows he stopped time, that he was fighting the creature, and then something happened. He looked so desperate in that moment of awareness, as the time-stop collapsed in on them. But instead of running away, he'd run to her. Why?

"He burned it out." Chara mumbles. She blinks, then shakes her head, wiping fresh tears on the back of her somehow oversized sweater sleeves. "The. There was. I can't explain. It was in me, and he burned it."

Toriel frowns. Chara's still recovering from whatever really happened, her words are a jumble, and then, worse, the question she doesn't want to ask- can her daughter be trusted? But if Frisk trusted her with his soul, then how can Toriel second-guess him?

"What was in you?" Toriel asks, slowly.

Chara shakes her head again, glancing back at Frisk. "It... you won't believe me. It was like some kind of... I don't know, demon. I don't think Frisk even knew what it was, not really."

"Demon?" Toriel asks, her frown deepening. In truth, she doesn't know if she believes Chara or not. Certainly, Frisk burned a lot of magic in there- the state of both his body and soul indicated that much- but some kind of 'demon'?

Chara takes a deep breath. How can she possibly explain the thing that found her in the dark? Does Toriel even know the truth of what happened to her and Asriel?

Can Chara even be the one to tell her, a century later, that she got them both killed? She's not sure. But once again, Frisk's Soul flares within her- Chara's own low reserve of Determination bolstered by the overflowing amount he provided- and she lowers her gaze to her lap. 

She swallows a lump in her throat. She can't avoid this forever. "Did. Did you ever learn what happened? To me and Asriel, up on the surface? Or, or how I got so sick, so fast?"

Toriel's brow furrows. She pulls over a chair and takes a seat, then grasps her daughter's hands in her own and closes her eyes. "I take it you have some things to tell me," she says, her voice quiet.

"Why?" Toriel asks, trying to understand. Chara stares at the floor still, wishing it would swallow her. When she was young, it felt like such a natural thing to give herself up. Now, though, with Toriel's confusion and worry staring her in the face, she can't remember how she'd ever convinced herself it was the right thing to do.

"I thought it would help." Chara says, quietly. Her voice trembles with each syllable. "I thought, Asriel and I could see the surface. He could see the stars. And. Maybe we could find souls for you. Break the barrier. Free everyone."

"It's not worth you, Chara." Toriel says. She squeezes Chara's hands. "It was never worth you."

Chara shivers. Her throat's closed up. She tries to swallow to clear it. "Everyone told me how important I was. Because I was a human, in the Underground. But that was all I could think of to do for them."

"You were barely even ten." Toriel says, and she lowers her head to look Chara in the eyes. "You didn't have to do anything for them."

"There's more. It's worse." Chara mumbles. 

Toriel shakes her head. "I want to know everything, Chara. Please."

Chara tenses herself, tries to meet her mother's eyes. Can't quite do it. Toriel makes it happen by moving her head again. 

"Well. Asriel took my soul, and we went to the surface..."

"...and then you died." Toriel says. She sighs, shaking her head. "Your brother always did hate violence. You two both should've told us something. Anything."

"You would've stopped us." Chara says, then winces at Toriel's incredulous look. "We thought- I thought it was too important. And I was so... I was so angry, at the humans in that village."

"So Ebott was the village you came from." Toriel says. She runs her thumbs across the backs of Chara's hands. "I know you had reasons for winding up with us."

"They thought red eyes were cursed." Chara says. She shoves down the twinge of anger at the old memories, gritting her teeth. "They thought I was a devil. So they hurt me."

"Is that why..." Toriel trails off. So many things. Chara's aversion to Asgore, at first, because of his booming voice and boisterous personality. The way she reflexively winced whenever Toriel held a knife around her. How frequently she hid herself away in books. The constant, terrible bitterness whenever humans came up in a conversation.

The way that Chara, the Fallen Human, did everything in her power to reject herself- ultimately destroying her body, so that only her Soul remained. 

She'd only ever really opened up to Asriel, the one monster her age that could get her to play or laugh. So when it came time that she formulated her plan, of course she'd turned to Asriel. The prince had been there since she fell, hadn't abandoned her, had never hesitated to be her friend. There was nobody else she could've turned to.

Toriel finally understands. She reaches up with one hand, brushing the hair away from Chara's eyes. Those garnet eyes, red from crying and wet with tears even still. They hold each other's gaze for a long, quiet moment, then embrace again.

Chara's Demon, as she called it, snuck up on her while she was halfway between dying and dead, on the border, ripe for the Nothing to steal. It fed off her rage, funneling everything into it. At first it was simply her abusers, her weakness, her brother's pacifism, the ones who shot arrows at him. Eventually, incorporeal and incapable of doing anything but existing, she raged at existence itself, unable to process or feel anything else. 

She spent almost a hundred years trapped in that cycle, burning away. In rare moments of lucidity, she tried to recover herself, but all she could find was anger in her chest. 

She witnessed Asgore's actions, and grew to hate him too. She hated Toriel, for failing to protect the children. But most of all, above all else, she started to hate Sans.

Sans was an anomaly. Even when she was alive, Sans was always simply in the background, never really a presence she paid much attention to. When she was pulled from her death into the grasp of the Demon, she started to see him differently. His power was immense, and she witnessed it, in those moments when he thought nobody was looking. He knew about the nature of things that her rage-addled brain could barely process. 

And worst of all, he knew about the children. Knew about their Souls. And didn't. Do. Anything.

Still, his power was enticing. The thought of an unending target that would actually let her express her anger was too much for her to bear. 

And then Frisk arrived. Poor Frisk, with his damaged throat. She watched him die over and over, and the Demon turned pity into disgust, concern into fury. This weakling had the power to control time, and yet he couldn't even defend himself! It reminded her all too much of Asriel.

When the time came to possess Frisk, the Demon didn't have to do much to urge her along.

Reset after Reset, she and her Sansy danced. When Sans began to give up too quickly, she started using Papyrus to egg him on, forcing him to fight over and over again. It was exhilarating. The pain of her losses forced her onward, even as Frisk's body became ever more battered. She only healed what was necessary. Why should she care? It wasn't like it slowed her down.

When Frisk finally broke free, because of Flowey's mania, her consciousness snapped-to for just a few moments. She was confused. She felt hollow, sick. 

She used her moment of freedom to apologize to Sans.

When the twisted Core exploded, Chara was torn in half. That free part of her was thrown into the void, where it would eventually become part of Green's body. 

The rest of her wound up in the Nothing.

Over the following years, her mind slowly went numb as a defense against the constant anger pumping through her system. On rare occasions, the Demon would find a gap into some reality, and send her into it. Not to fight, of course, but to learn, to strengthen herself and maintain her ability to move quickly. The part of her that she kept insulated matured, even if the Demon would never let her body do the same. 

Eventually, finally, after almost one hundred years as a slave to her manufactured anger, Chara Dreemurr was found and freed by the boy she once possessed.

Chara finishes speaking, relating all of this to Toriel as best she can. She doesn't know what the Demon should be called, and she can't remember large parts of her imprisonment. But she knows what happened to her, and her eyes finally stay on Toriel's, desperate for her to understand, or at least to believe. 

Toriel stares into Chara's eyes, searching for anything, anything at all, to help her understand better what her daughter has been through. It's impossible. What Chara describes should be impossible. But the things Frisk has told her, about what Carmen has been through, about the things that happened to the both of them...

"I believe you." She says, finally.

Chara exhales, deflating into Toriel's arms again. She lays against her mother for a moment, then finds her words again. "Thank you."

"It's going to be hard." Toriel says. "I trust you, but..."

"I know." Chara says. She grips Toriel's arms.

"Don't you ever dare give up again." Toriel says, firmly. 

Chara nods, swallowing again. "I won't. I promise. I'm so sorry, mom, I- I don't-"

"Shh." Toriel says, and brushes Chara's hair away from her face again. "You don't have to say any more."

A long moment passes again, and finally Chara's stomach interrupts by growling aggressively. Her face pales, and she looks at her mother again. 

"I'll bring you something." Toriel says, starting to get up. Chara grabs her arm, pushing herself to the edge of the bed.

"No, I. I need to get up." Chara says. She swings her legs off the bed, pushing herself up. Unsteady at first, but she gets her balance pretty fast, and soon she and Toriel are on their way to the cafeteria.


End file.
